The present invention is directed to a system and method for performing market research studies on online content accessible by remote computers over a network and more particularly, to a system and method for performing focus group studies on online content accessible by computers over a network.
The Internet is an emerging and rapidly-growing marketplace with immense distributive power. Unlike many traditional marketplaces, the Internet marketer and consumer are physically separated. The Internet marketer promotes his goods by way of a Web site which comprises a home page and may further comprise multiple additional pages that together display information about the marketer and the products being marketed. Most such Web sites also enable a customer to place orders for the products being marketed. Other Web sites are strictly informational in nature and may comprise pages of articles, pictures and charts, or provide a search engine that enables a visitor to search for a particular Web site or to develop a list of Web sites on a particular topic. The latter two types of Web sites may derive revenue from advertising placed on the pages and viewed by visitors to the site or by payments from the proprietors of the sites to whom the visitor is directed.
Many marketers lack the technical capability to develop a Web site and must rely on third party site development companies. Larger marketing organizations may possess sufficient resources to develop their own in-house site developers. In either case, since a Web site provides a direct link between a vendor and a potentially huge customer base without the presence of a human sales assistant as an intermediary, the Web site must be “user friendly.” It must be designed so that the purpose of the site is clear and unambiguous and so that navigating the site is intuitive. Unfortunately, there is at present no reliable way to determine the effectiveness and “user friendliness” of a Web site empirically. This is because it is possible for literally millions of potential purchasers to visit a Web site and not leave a trace of having been there. In addition, it is not possible to determine how many visitors to a Web site did not make a purchase or complete a transaction because the purpose of the Web site was not readily ascertainable or the steps needed to conduct a transaction were hard to follow.
As a result, marketing strategists and researchers are seeking ways to collect qualitative data from visitors to their clients' Web sites. For example, researchers have assembled focus groups of consumers and had them use computers to access a client's Web site via the Internet. Typically, such a focus group is assembled in a room and each member of the group is assigned to a computer. The group is directed by a moderator to go to predetermined pages and perform certain predetermined operations. However, a disadvantage of that system is that it is not possible to collect data pertaining to the pages visited by the members of the group or to obtain each subject's initial emotional reaction to the specific Web pages visited. Therefore, that system and method were incapable of generating meaningful data showing the effectiveness of a Web site in promoting sales and whether a site is user friendly.
Accordingly, there is a need for a system and method that will allow marketing strategists and researchers to conduct focus group studies for their clients' Web sites that probe the group's attitudes and reactions while the group navigates specified Web sites and analyze the group's navigation through the Web site and obtain qualitative ratings and comments provided by the group while the group navigates the subject Web site during the study. There is also a need for a system and method that is sufficiently flexible to be used for obtaining a subject's reaction to any online content, such as product design or packaging.